iris ter schiphorst

Iris ter Schiphorst

Futures...

Utopias, dystopias? (2022)

• Is a world beyond the all-encompassing digital immersion, the techno-economic project, still conceivable?
  
  
• Is an imaginary somewhere else still conceivable?
  (For Elon Musk it is apparently Mars, for those in the southern hemisphere who are haunted by wars and climate devastation it is Europe.)
  
  
• Has enlightenment mutated into the project of a belief in progress?
  ( "For some time now, all progress has been accompanied by problems that are at least as great as the hoped-for improvement in social, moral and technical terms"[1])
  
  
• Has our (Western) belief that progress will lead to a better, fairer and freer world proved to be a mistake?
  

• Will our history come to an end because we are running out of resources, species are dying out and the environment is collapsing?
  

• Can we still imagine "inhabiting the world in a humane way"? Or has the concept of "humanity" become obsolete

• Are we perhaps simply no longer capable of thinking in terms of alternatives after the prevailing social and economic order has been presented to us as having no alternative since 1989?
  (However, as early as 1964, Theodor Adorno noted a "strange shrinkage of utopian consciousness", as any prospect of a change in society as a whole had receded into the distant future. Although people were deeply aware that they could live "not only without hunger and probably without fear", "but also as free people", they did not believe in change. The "social apparatus" has become "so hardened throughout the world that what stands before their eyes as a tangible possibility of fulfilment presents itself to them as radically impossible". All utopian thinking was thus nipped in the bud, and people even began to devalue utopia against their better judgement [2]).
  
  
• Have the hopes placed in liberal democracy and the (globalised) market economy after the end of real communism been fulfilled? Or is it not rather a case of "subjugation under techno-political rule"[3]?

 

What is considered a concrete utopia today? ('Concrete utopia' means the state after a real possible change in society and is a term coined by the philosopher Ernst Bloch)

• The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda? [4 ]
  (A declaration of intent (manifesto) to improve the world, summarised in 17 guiding principles, which almost all countries in the world signed in 2016. The most important points state that the world should be free of poverty, equal, economically and digitally interconnected and sustainable by 2030).
  
  
• The European New Green Deal?[5] (The term Green New Deal refers to concepts that are intended to initiate the ecological restructuring of the European economic system in order to overcome social challenges, in particular climate change).
  
  

Are these utopias or investments in the future? [ 6]

• Can the future be manufactured? Can it be calculated?
  
  
• Who invests in the future? Where and why? And for whom? (e.g. in immortality, or life on Mars?)
  

• Is it (the Musks, Bezos and Gates) about utopia or speculation? About wishes or credit[7]/a bet on the future? (Will the symbiosis of AI ("Artificial Intelligence") and the human brain lead to "the united will of the people of Earth controlling the future world", as Elon Musk claims and has been investing endless amounts of money in this endeavour for years? [8])
  
  
• Will the world be fairer if everyone is fitted with Elon Musk's brain chip[9]? Or will Elon Musk be richer? (And why is he promoting 'pro-natalism'? [10] The movement that strives for control over evolution and uses all the possibilities of genetic engineering to give birth to as many 'genetically superior' white children as possible and thus "save civilisation"[11]?
  
  
• Would Adorno be a transhumanist today? ("Without the idea of a life without fetters, liberated from death, the idea of utopia cannot be conceived", he claimed in the famous 1964 conversation with Ernst Bloch about the chances of utopia in the modern age[12]).
  
  
• Is "feminism for the 99%" (Arruzza/Bhattacharya/Fraser2019) a concrete utopia? [ 13].
  
  
• Is the international revolution of human rights a concrete utopia, as Wolfgang Kaleck writes? [14] (According to Ilija Trojanow, the "most important formulation of our humanity ")
  

---

[1] see Jean Luc Nancy, The Fragile Skin, diaphanes

[2] Theodor W. Adorno: "Something is missing ... On the contradictions of utopian longing. Gespräch mit Ernst Bloch", in: Tendenz- Latenz-Utopie, Gesammelte Werke (1964 / 1985, Frankfurt a. M., pp. 350 - 367

[3] (see also: .24Jean-Luc Nancy: Die entwerkte Gemeinschaft. In: The Unrepresentable Community. Stuttgart 1988, pp. 9-92, 11 (Jean-Luc Nancy: La communauté désœuvrée. In: La communauté désœuvrée [1986]. Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée. Paris 2004, pp. 9-105, 11). See also Spitta: Gemeinschaft jenseits von Identität, p. 284f.

[4] see https://17ziele.de/info/was-sind-die-17 goals.html#:~:text=End%20poverty%20and%20hunger%20and%20shaping%20sustainable%20ways%20of%20living%20worldwide

[5] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_de

[6] In this context, sociologist Klaus Dörre asks whether capitalism and sustainability are actually compatible? Or whether 'creative destruction' (Schumpeter) as a mode of capitalist dynamism might also destroy fossil capitalism and invent new "combinations of things and forces" that make it greener? Or will capitalism ultimately fail because of the ecological question? -See Klaus Dörre https://klaus-doerre.de/kapitalismus-und-nachhaltigkeit/
https://sdg-portal.de/de/ueber-das-projekt/17-ziele?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsueM9qC3hAMVD5NoCR0hUwB7EAAYASAAEgIgvvD_BwE
see also: KAPITALISM UND NACHHALTIGKEIT from the series 'Zukünfte der Nachhaltigkeit' Volume 4, Eds: Sighard Neckel, Philipp Degens, Sarah Lenz Campus Verlag Frankfurt/New York 2022

[7] Credit behaviour is current speculative behaviour geared to the expectability of future present

[8] https://www.gew-hb.de/aktuelles/detailseite/praktizierender-transhumanist#:~:text=Der%20Vision%C3%A4r%20sagt%20ganz%20klar,englische%20%E2%80%9EArtificial%20Intelligence%E2%80%9C)

[9] https://www.leadersnet.de/news/76359,transhumanistische-traeume-musk-unternehmen-verkuendet.html

[10] https://www.businessinsider.de/leben/pronatalisten-elon-musk-evolution-menschheit-geburtenrate-zivilisation-femtech-fortpflanzung-b/

[11] In 2022, Elon Musk warned in a tweet that a population collapse due to low birth rates would be a much greater threat to civilisation than global warming

[12] Theodor W. Adorno: "Something is missing ... On the contradictions of utopian longing. Conversation with Ernst Bloch", in: Tendenz- Latenz-Utopie, Gesammelte Werke (1964 / 1985, Frankfurt a. M., pp. 350 - 367).

[13] "The feminism that we have in mind [...refuses to sacrifice the welfare of the many for the freedom of the few, it defends the needs and rights of the many - of poor and working class women, of racialised and migrant women, of queer trans and physically disabled women, of women who are encouraged to be middle class even though capital exploits them. But that is not enough. This feminism is not limited to women's issues as they have traditionally been defined.
It represents the cause of all those who are exploited, dominated and oppressed and hopes to be a source of hope for all humanity. That is why we speak of a feminism of the 99 per cent." (Arruzza/Bhattacharya/Fraser 2019, 24) According to the authors, Italian professor* Cinzia Arruzza, American professor* Nancy Fraser and Indian professor* Tithi Bhattacharya, it "sees itself as an international manifesto, modelled on the manifesto of the Communist Party of Marx and Engels, which stands for an anti-capitalist feminism that does not only represent a privileged elite". The manifesto is an attempt to outline a way to bring about a just society; this includes women's strikes, alliances with other anti-capitalist and anti-systemic movements (anti-racists, environmentalists, labour and migrant activists), in short: an alliance of all "anti-capitalist, ecological, anti-racist, anti-imperialist factions, LGBTIQ+ movements and trade unions". https://www.growthinktank.org/de/feminismus-fuer-die-99-ein-manifest/ [15.02.2022]

[14] (see Wolfgang Kaleck: Die konkrete Utopie der Menschenrechte, 2021 pp. Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main).
https://www.book2look.com/book/9783103970647

 

 

← back